European
Funds –Yes, but what to do meanwhile to survive?
Train your staff before its too late

In the recent years the topic of
European funds has become very popular in our country. In the last 10-15 years
not a few people received funds from those funds under one form or another and
that helped them develop their business and stabilize their position on the
market.

After Bulgaria joining the EU this topic
became even more popular. Varieties of grants for training, qualification and
re-qualification of personnel, for purchasing machines and materials for
production started to be given. As a result companies from different sectors
begun to see the EU funds as a possibility for stability and prosperity. 

This is understandable. No one
would find a few hundred or a few million Euro for machinery, buildings,
production etc. as unnecessary.

Here however there can be a
problem, a trap. Lots of people would say to themselves: A! If I could get
somehow a few hundreds or million Euros from the EU funds this would solve my
problems”. As a results people start looking for channels and connections, to
fill in big packs of forms, to hire consultants and to direct their efforts in
that direction. This takes months, sometimes an year and the outcome is
unclear. At the same time the market is changing, the competition becomes
stronger and the company makes ups and downs. The problems remain.

Actually gaining EU funds is
possible to solve a few problems but will surely not resolve the main problems,
i.e. those problems which create the rest of the problems. Lack or the insufficient amount of money
is not the main problem – it is rather the inability to find the optimal way of
its gaining by the direct or indirect activity of the company. It is good that
someone gives you a kilo of fish which solves the problem in a short term. But
it is much better if this someone shows you how he caught it. This will solve
the problem in a long and stable run.

What are in this case the main
problems which the Bulgarian business is facing in general? Of course this
topic is very broad but I would like to mention some of them which I and my
colleagues faced in most of the cases.

I am sure that this list can be
enriched with more problematic points which are the fundament of the
non-optimal results. If companies can find an adequate help concerning the
aforementioned problematic points then the need of external funds would be
considerably less. It may sound a little far-fetched but there is no fund or a
sum of money which can give a solution to those problematic points. Two or
three new machines from the EU funds, a new building or other external help
would just be a patch of a new fabric on an old and worn out dress. A person
patches one hole while the whole dress is tearing apart allover.

   

That’s why lots of managers are
facing the question of finding global, holistic solutions for themselves and
for their companies, a “know-how” – administrative and industrial which is able
to place them and their companies on an survival and prosperity guaranteed
ground. 

Moreover in his book “Ethics” Mr.
Hubbard whose management system my company is using in its trainings,
consultancy and coaching speaks about the so called Conditions, level of
operativeness in life as a whole in all of its manifestations and specifically
in business. There are precise and correct formulas which are connected to
these levels of operativeness. If they are applied as indicated in the book of
Ethics this will surely lead to stability, expansion, influence and
well-being.    

The formulas for the different
condition form a scale which shows the degree of success and the potential for
survival of a given person, post, department, company, holding. The main instrument
for measuring the condition, the potential for survival is statistics – a
number or a volume compared to earlier numbers and volumes of the same things.
The lowest conditions are Confusion, Treason, Enemy, Doubt and Liability. The
upper levels are Non-Existence, Danger, Emergency, Normal Operation, Affluence,
Power Change and Power.

For example in the condition of
Non-Existence in which a person is when starting on a new job – with or without
experience has the following formula:

Lots of people with some
experience on a given position when entering a new job do not know this formula
and act as if they were in Affluence or in Power. They immediately start to
introduce changes, to look for the easy way, to impose their style of work and
the way to do the work they now from before. This gives them and the company
headaches.

So it is important for a person
to be able to identify what condition he is in and correspondingly to apply the
formula for this condition and to go up to the upper one.

Again I would like to say the
following: there is no fund or a chunk of money which can substitute the lack
of administrative know-how, the knowledge and skill in regard of management and
human resources and knowing and applying the formula for the Conditions. Those
funds would help those who already know these things and who are able.

And it is good that the companies
in Bulgaria
which realize the necessity of training and that the training and bettering
their personnel is the key to finding a solution the problematic points, which
were mentioned above. It is good that they allocate annual budgets for training
or decide on the spot when a need arises or when they receive an offer for a
training they need. This on one hand is a question of mentality. On the other
hand it is a question of what is available on the training market and how an
owner of a company or an Executive can choose who should train himself and his
personnel and how to measure the benefits from training. But this is another
topic. 

So the question is: European
funds – Yes, but what to do meanwhile to survive?

The EU funds and subsidies for
different programs are an important element for survival and prosperity of
people from different branches of economy.

But in my opinion even more
important is the training and improving of personnel so that a company or a
person may find the solution for the six problematic points. These points if
remaining unsolved can create a danger for a person or a company in a long run.

I would like to end with a
quotation from the book of Mr. Hubbard “Problems of work”. He writes: “A
workman is not just a workman. A laborer is not just a laborer. An office
worker is not just an office worker. They are living, breathing, important
pillars on which the entire structure of our civilization is erected. They are
not cogs in a mighty machine. They are the machine itself”.